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A review by motherhorror
The Hatch by Kelli Owen
4.0
If I had to choose between a plague of flies or spiders, I would happily endure the flies. I have arachnophobia. It's no joke. A single spider can send me into a full-blown panic attack if it's big enough and hideously ugly.
THE HATCH is a standalone sequel to WAITING OUT WINTER. In WINTER, Nick Kontis and his family barely survived nature's attack on humanity but it wasn't without its loses. An outbreak of deadly infected flies forced people into their homes in order to avoid being infected with disease.
I recommend reading that novella first, but you don't have to--if spiders are more threatening to you and you want to start with this one, you can do that but there are references back to situational horrors from the first book.
Now it's Spring and a new threat has emerged...hatching. Creeping. Crawling.
The interesting thing about Kelli Owen's nature horror is that the real focus in on the people trying to survive. THE HATCH reminded me of THE WALKING DEAD in the way that at some point, the zombies were not as threatening as the other survivors the protagonists encounter. In THE HATCH, the spiders are amassing and they are threatening but people are managing to band together, hunker down and survive.
Where WINTER focused on one family, THE HATCH has our family on the road looking for a safe place --a spider-free zone.
Kelli introduces some new characters to engage with our family--some we can love and some we love to hate. It's my feeling that with the new characters, there was more story/character development required that we just don't get because of the length of the story. WINTER zeroes in on one family surviving and while it felt concise and succinct, I didn't find it lacking.
However, in this story, I needed more time with the new characters. More engagement and situational drama/dialog/relationship.
I did love that Owen gave us a resolved ending. I feel like if she wanted to keep going and shoot for a trilogy, the ending was open enough to do that (I would love that!)
I recommend these two books to horror readers who enjoy character-driven, realistic, emotional nature horror vs. a creature-feature gorefest. I love Kelli Owen's storytelling voice and will continue reading her books in 2020.
THE HATCH is a standalone sequel to WAITING OUT WINTER. In WINTER, Nick Kontis and his family barely survived nature's attack on humanity but it wasn't without its loses. An outbreak of deadly infected flies forced people into their homes in order to avoid being infected with disease.
I recommend reading that novella first, but you don't have to--if spiders are more threatening to you and you want to start with this one, you can do that but there are references back to situational horrors from the first book.
Now it's Spring and a new threat has emerged...hatching. Creeping. Crawling.
The interesting thing about Kelli Owen's nature horror is that the real focus in on the people trying to survive. THE HATCH reminded me of THE WALKING DEAD in the way that at some point, the zombies were not as threatening as the other survivors the protagonists encounter. In THE HATCH, the spiders are amassing and they are threatening but people are managing to band together, hunker down and survive.
Where WINTER focused on one family, THE HATCH has our family on the road looking for a safe place --a spider-free zone.
Kelli introduces some new characters to engage with our family--some we can love and some we love to hate. It's my feeling that with the new characters, there was more story/character development required that we just don't get because of the length of the story. WINTER zeroes in on one family surviving and while it felt concise and succinct, I didn't find it lacking.
However, in this story, I needed more time with the new characters. More engagement and situational drama/dialog/relationship.
I did love that Owen gave us a resolved ending. I feel like if she wanted to keep going and shoot for a trilogy, the ending was open enough to do that (I would love that!)
I recommend these two books to horror readers who enjoy character-driven, realistic, emotional nature horror vs. a creature-feature gorefest. I love Kelli Owen's storytelling voice and will continue reading her books in 2020.